


Not Everyone Dies (Heisenberg's Return)

by SilverXF



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverXF/pseuds/SilverXF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Walter White lives, the story continues... Immediately after Breaking Bad finale, Felina.  Tagline:  With Heisenberg alive, can Death be far behind?</p>
<p>Poor Jesse, how's he going to manage, now?  How alone can a person be without giving in?  Also, will Marie get her pound of flesh, literally?</p>
<p>Any comments, especially critiques and complaints, welcome.  You're all smarter than me, however you can figure to send them.  ;) </p>
<p>For Faster Updates (it's up to Chapter 31, yes, 31! (but I'm HTML challenged here!) read more here at Fanfiction.net:  <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9749088/1/Not-Everyone-Dies">Not Everyone Dies</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

…Not Everyone Dies

“Walter White has more lives than a rabid cat.” -Saul Goodman (Cinnabon 9 Assistant Manager)

“Pupil response.” Over armored men looked down at the body belonging to the nation’s manhunt of the moment, the number one threat to (DEA department, west) homeland security. Sweating, their breaths clouding their face shields, they crowded in anticipation to get a good look. Disappointed at the ragged, bone-thin, homeless man without a pistol (or even small switchblade, pathetic) on him, a few turned away to do More Important Things. Finally catching such an undangerous looking man really wasn’t going to look good on the 10 o’clock news. At least the compound looked more promising. The odor of blood and intestines was in the air, and something was moving and clanking in the dark. A few looked up hopefully, perhaps catching the glint of a bomb or trailing wires of a booby trap, this man could make air blow up, according to the stories. The SWAT agent pulled the high intensity flashlight away, felt at White’s neck again. “I still don’t get a pulse, Captain.”

Walter White’s pale hands were well above his prone head, where another dutiful agent had kicked them. He certainly seemed no threat. How much of a monster had they made him over the past several months? Agents still had their guns pointed at the fragile school teacher, 

_(…some a little shakily,_ the Captain noted with a frown) 

as if he was ready to pounce on them like a zombie jack in the box.

“Stand down,” Captain Hollander growled to those still around him. “Look around, look sharp. I don’t want another incident like the tortoise bomb happening in here.” The grim faces of the other members agreed. There was so much in the lab that could be explosive.

“CPR, Captain?” one young recruit kneeling over White dared to ask.

Adrenaline rush was making his team slow and stupid, which is never impressive. On the other hand, a live Heisenberg would be.

“You’ll be squishing blood through what looks like two big holes in his side if you did. Landis!” A man with an oversized med kit rushed up. “Pressure bandages, front and back.” A great gout of blood and fluid gushed when he lifted the body slightly, yet he was able to quickly seal the holes in White. Others around the body were still hesitant to touch it.

Hollander glared at his men. “He’s a tired, old man, and a trapped rat. I’ve seen it before. There’s no terrorist bomb sewn in him, no one last stand. Start the CPR.” Then under his breath, he sighed, “Let’s see if the son of a bitch is as hard to kill as they say.”

The men started the ministrations that would hopefully keep their prize alive. Though they were normally an excellent squad, hard trained and eagle eyed in tactics and strategy, somehow no one noticed the little, empty vial that slipped out of White’s back pocket as they pumped him back into life.  


…

Jesse Pinkman raced down the darkly engulfing highway that was both the road and his mind. He was definitely in a fugue state, besides New Mexico, and it was the land of his most “bad high” nightmare. He knew he was driving, his foot cramping from the pressure on the accelerator, hands white on the steering wheel, eyes too fixed ahead. _I’m going to get pulled over if I don’t slow down,_ some small, still rational part of his mind was trying to tell him. His foot hurt so bad, he did not know how long he had been driving or how far he had come. Maybe if he could just sleep somewhere, pull over and sleep, he thought he had driven far enough. He looked at the gas gauge, it said it was still over half full.

Jesse tried hard to pull his foot up, but his knee had locked, in fact, his whole body was rigid. _Can rigor mortis set up in a live person?_ He heard something panting in the car (was someone in here? He hadn’t looked into the car well before his crazed drive), and realized it was him.

_Slow up, slow up, that smart voice in his head spoke again. It’s better now, it’s better._

“Is it? No? Yes?” he fumbled the words out loud. Jesse Fragmentedman. Living in the conditions he had been living in for the past few months,

_years? lifetimes?_

he had gone deep within himself, surfacing only occasionally when a particularly hard blow woke him to some question.

“How much aluminum did you put in? Was it the right amount? It doesn’t look right.” That awful, familiar, drawl. Oh, each point of meth purity was a hard won agony. The scars on his face when he was knocked into a broken trolley edge, almost costing him an eye. The bigger scars on his body coldly, but still lovingly, put there by the sadistic Todd who seemed to be experimenting with pain. He saw the remnants of a tarantula in a jar Todd had tossed around carelessly in the lab. The pieces were all there, each leg segment that Todd cut off to see how many the tarantula needed to move around. How would the thing react to having just half a leg? Would it still be able to get up on it? Would one side of its body tilt more than another? It looked very methodical, and he imagined Todd examining it very carefully, making mental notes, proudly finding a way to feed it so that it could still eat without its front legs. At some point the spider stopped eating, and he took off its mouth parts. It looked like he got it down to one leg, or at least half a leg, and there would still be some reaction from the poor creature, a little more when Todd then started on its eyes. Did he really imagine himself a perfect, chiseled, unfeeling blond trooper back in the Third Reich, efficiently wringing answers from captives, secrets from enemies, work from the near dead? It certainly made Todd smile, beatifically, when Jesse finally did what he said. And Todd’s alternate nursing gentleness only made the beatings worse.

 _Don’t think about it. Don’t think. Time to sleep._ He was surprised when he found the car coasting to a stop. It was some sort of clearing, off the road, smooth sand beneath. Soft sand. Cool breeze. Sleepy night. New Mexico could be both tender and harsh. Like Todd.

 _He’s dead, gone, never to touch you again._ The goal wasn't the pleasurable acts for Todd, it was the thrill of watching something break. And pieced back together to his liking.

Some say the desert can heal, has a mysticism old and creative, can give back rebirth. Jesse hoped these things were true as he slowly collapsed into desert-silent sleep.  


…

Walter’s throat felt like someone had cut it. Then that someone sawed off his head, unseated his brains, pushed them back in again, and reattached the whole contraption with dirty vacuum cleaner hoses and slimy aquarium tubing. He hoped something like that didn’t really happen. He badly wanted to cough, to cough out a lung if he could, but some brick in his throat prevented him. He could feel his heartbeat in his temples, a cackling, dancing throbbing that scolded his audacity, and bad judgment, at being alive. He felt the machines breathing for him, washing his blood as it re-circulated back into his body, heard the various monitors sound, ready to clang should some vital system, man-made or natural, break down with explosive stillness.

Someone mostly in painful white came through the door. He closed his eyes and tried to calm that wayward heartbeat. _More time to think before being noticed,_ that strategy worked for him his entire life - Heisenberg’s life, too.

The nurse was not dressed in an old-fashioned uniform, she just liked white. It was such a shiny color, so clean, bright, soothing. She pulled her thin, soft sweater sleeve back, revealing carnations of freckles over a thick wrist. Pale, cloudy blue veins peeped under translucent skin. She always wore 50+ sunscreen against the New Mexico sun, but the field of carnations flowered more each day. What would the cancer feel like? Spreading, always spreading, through layer after layer, deeper, farther, bloodier. What does it feel like?

The tiger was in his cage lying in front of her. The bars were made of tubing and wires, walls of machines and pumps, the raised sides of the hospital bed. She heard there was some debate whether to actually handcuff him in some way, and the doctors loudly saw to that “no.” The bed did have some restraint straps on it, but no one pulled them on yet. She smirked. Some of the nurses didn’t even want to enter this room and refused the shift. How the news lies and clouds weak minds. People have stopped thinking for themselves. From what she read, and she had to seek out more info. than most and read between the lines, this was a thinking beast. Although she thought beast was much too harsh a word when looking at him. He was so thin. She hoped there would be a day that she could feed him a bowl of broth. Maybe she would even make it herself.

Chapter 2

The nurse was watching the 11 o’clock news, now extended well past midnight. There had been a flurry of Breaking News reports over the last hour, but the official newscast was airing now. Heisenberg Has Been Captured! Analysts excitedly hiccupped across the screen, talking heads blathered about relieved mothers with high school teens, it was amazing how so many witnesses could pop up to an event only a handful of people, well, living people, saw.

_Wait, even the SWAT team didn’t actually see anything._

There was a camera pan of dark sheds waiting in the glare of helicopter searchlights, waiting for their secret contents to be exposed. A single voice on the tv chirped again. “Well, there you have it. After all this bloodshed, and reports of an amazing body count…”

“And Arty, I bet the SWAT team was happy it wasn’t any of their bodies.”

“Yes, I’m sure they are happy about that! Good thing, body armor. After all this bloodshed, Heisenberg is ensconced in an undisclosed New Mexico hospital, in critical condition, and rumored near death.”

“Near death isn’t dead, Arty.”

“Yes, and the DEA is good with that. They are anxious to probe the mind of the Blue Death creator.”

The good nurse glanced over at her patient. He seemed to be sleeping soundly again, his eyelids flickering in dreams, and the machines dutifully hissed on. Hissing, that’s probably what the nation is doing to the healthy looking pic of W.W. (deranged school teacher! watch your children!) being flashed on all the news reports. Walter White, evil among the innocents, corrupter of pre-adults, selling and recruiting to his own students. Walter White, even the name is deception. Oh, her colleagues wondered why she didn’t pull a few plugs right then and there.

She wished they could see a real picture of him as he lay there, a skeleton under thin sheets.

Well, why shouldn’t they? The only prohibition to cell phones in the critical ward was that they had to be in “airplane mode.” Fishing out her deluxe, big screen, silvery, mega-pic-celled? smart phone from its shiny case in her sweater pocket (bought for her by a caring nephew who adored all things technical), she never could figure out what they meant by that.

…

  
The teen heard his sweet “message received” voice go off. He loved that voice. He heard it 150 times a day, and that was a slow day. Justin was a blogger, a tweeter, a facer, a web slinger, any net-social means he could spread his Just Message on he could, and hell damn would, do. He looked down at his cell phone. Oh, oh, it was his crazy nurse aunty. It was such a waste to try to get her to understand anything electronic. In the hospital, she could sometimes go through patient screens by route, her mind still worked that way as long as nothing changed. Fortunately, Unix based hospital systems were as cemented as the adobe basements they worked out of. Well, no, to be fair, the New Mex hospitals weren’t that bad, and better than their reputations, but boy, some of the staff were sure old, and off.

At his mom’s prodding, and expense, Justin bought his aunt the latest and greatest in telecommunications profundity. To be honest, he wanted to play with it himself, and used it several months before repacking it, only minor food stains notable, and handing it to his pleased aunt. She gushed over it and poked at it, fat fingers skidding past the edges, and had no idea how it worked. It was sure bright, though. Justin, mercifully, set it up so she could just poke a few places and bring up a short list of her most likely calls. His mom wanted to make sure she could reach them when she went off on one of her anxiety rants. She was deathly worried about her skin. Blotches over her cheeks and chin, even on her eyelids, worried her endlessly, and living in New Mexico didn’t help. She wanted to wear an Arab head scarf, but in white instead of black, complete with a face veil that went over her eyes and underneath her wire glasses. There was some kind of mesh in it so you could still see, kinda, but the family was concerned that NRA rifle cocks would mistake her for a Real Arab, and everyone else as just plain nuts.

“It’s the sun, the killer sun!” she would yell as the New Mexico morning streamed into her bedroom and over mottled blankets. “I hate it here, I want to move, IWANTTOMOVE!” Justin remembered that morning mantra even as a (younger) kid, and now, thankfully, his I-Stamp musically drowned it out most bad days.

Aunty wakes up with a new obsession these mornings. He could never understand why a 56 year old, white, New Mexico bred, conservative health worker would be interested in stories about some weird, bald, mythical druggie who could cook up blue clouds of manic happiness at night and teach sleepy young-uns by day. No one in his family was an addict (except maybe for the Web, admittedly ;), but… some old, blue psycho?

Takes one to know one, Justin.

Now tonight, most of America knows one. And they want to know more.

“Yes, Aunty?”

“How do you do that, know who’s calling you? You are just too smart, mister.” Justin sounded so sweet to her over the phone. He was such a good child. Too bad he was just a little too young to have known Walter White as a teacher. He could have learned to really think. How could anyone not learn from such an intelligent man. “Honey, I’m sorry to bother you from your studies, and so late, but I thought with all the news you’d still be up.” Justin popped another moon pie chunk into his mouth and turned down the shooting volume of his game. “I just wanted to ask… well, you said my phone could take a picture?”

“Yeah, Aunty Rose, it’s a little button on the side of the phone.”

“There’s lots of buttons on the side of the phone, sweetheart.”

“The button has a little icon like a circle on it.”

“I’m looking for a… cir-cle?” Rose squinted, but even with a magnifying glass, which she forgot to bring along in all her excitement that evening, she wouldn’t know what she was looking for.

“Well, you know, Aunty, there’s not really that many buttons (when the hell did seven buttons become overwhelming for a grown-up?), so why don’t you point it and push each button until a picture comes up.”

“Point, honey?”

“The top of the screen. You know, like a tv set, the top.”  
“Where you put the flower vase on it?”

Flower vase? He had to reach back in his memory past flat screen tv’s. In the Before Time.

“No, Aunty, near the top. You’ll see a, ugh, I mean, uh, circle.”

Rose squinted at her phone again. “Oh yes, I do see that one. It’s like a piece of glass. Point that?”

“Yes, Aunty, yes.” Justin nodded his head vigorously, as if she could see him doing that, he was that frustrated. “Point that, and push the buttons.”

“Okay, honey. I hope it works. Thank you, good night.”

“Good night, Aunt Rose.” Oh God, what the heck could that old bag of crazy want a picture of? A cat? A cute pigeon? And where the heck would it go with all that button pushing. Eh, who cares, it couldn’t be anything good.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 3

“Sorry, I should have said W.W.’s a rabid cat full of bad pennies, always turning up.” - Saul Goodman (Cinnabon 3 Manager, “Moving up!”)

Marie Schrader stroked the soft, delicate skin of her palms and remembered her husband’s touch. The familiar feel of crying emptiness welled, tears flowing before the dawn. Waking was her daily burden, another quiet day without him, cold morning light laughing at her pain filled eyes. She wanted the world to be as dark as her thoughts, for always.

_They caught him, and **still** alive._ Marie clenched her teeth at the idea, to the point of breaking. The things she wanted to do to him, that traitor, that monster Judas - my own blood.

_I’m taking that blood back._

Hank would have been the one trying to distract her from such thinking. He would have told her such venom only kills her, tears at her mind and spirit, creates a monster inside. He loved her heart, caring, kind, tender, even when he was being an ass to her, and he knew many times he was.

_Why can’t you be here with me?_ This plea was so loud in her, so longing, so constant, she was surprised the cosmos didn’t just appear Hank out of nothing before her and end this farce of her human existence. You’re supposed to be here, Hank, you’re supposed to be here. This wasn’t part of the deal.

_Yes it was, babe._ Hank would have said that with a grin on his face, always partly joking, all serious.

Not-By-Him! She gnashed her teeth again, tasting faint iron and copper. Some army drug cartel could have killed you, some cross fire shoot out could have killed you, some high junkie, not Him.

_A meth kingpin fits into those scenarios, sweetie._

He was supposed to have loved you! You loved him.

There was silence to that question. Even in her own mind, that question would forever bring silence.

Marie sat up abruptly, wiped her tears with a cold hand, drank water from a vigilant glass on her bedside table. For a minute she thought of nothing, her mind blank to everything around her, invisible to the uncaring cosmos. Then she tried to remember all the places Hank kept his guns.  


…

Flynn Lambert was sobbing in Skyler’s embrace. This was not an unusual thing of late, but the news of Walter’s capture unleashed tidal waves of conflict through his young soul. She wished she could take it all away for him, take it on in some way even when her own life was dying. 

“Please Flynn, shhh… shhh.” She tried to make her voice soothing between her own quiet sobs. She forced her tears back, resolved. “Look, we’re not responsible for him anymore, he abandoned us long ago, it’s just as if a stranger was on the news.”

Flynn shook his head violently against her chest. The volume of his sobs grew quieter, but shook his fragile psyche and body more. She had to concede to the deep, bottomless hurt. “Ok, Flynn, ok… you’re right.” Her breaths were catching again. She opened her eyes wide so they could dry, looked around the dingy rooms, the old pictures, the shreds of memories. She wished the morning would come faster, to have something besides all these shadows here. Then she wondered if there would ever be a real morning for them again. Whispering to her son, saying the hopeful things that must be said, “We’ll get through it all, my baby, we will… we will.”  


_…_

Jesse dreamt. For most of the night he slept soundly and dreamless, wrapped in black exhaustion. The heat of the New Mexico sun roasted the air in his metal cocoon, and he became restless. He was in his cell again. They removed the tarp over his prison when they remembered, if it wasn’t a late beer and gun cleaning night, and sometimes they would get to him by noon. By then he could hardly breathe the superheated air of his cell and was licking the dripping cement walls for condensation. Uncle Jack finally scolded his guys, making them each take a morning shift to “make sure he lived through the week. It was good meth and money, and it don’t cost much to feed him, need I say more?” They did what Uncle Jack said, but took a lot of shortcuts in their responsibilities. Fire hosing his cell at night, with him in it, of course, was one of their favorites, figuring the water and cooling evaporation would extend some of the morning. And it “makes the stink less in there,” they laughed.

_Tarantula in a jar,_ Jesse thought many torturously bitter nights and burning mornings. _I’ll make you pay back for each piece, somehow._


	3. For Faster Updates and The Rest Of The Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And To Read More

Here's the link, I think ;) Updates Galore! Not Everyone Dies

It's up to Chapter 31! Yes, 31! ;) After a long hiatus, the story continues. Will this ever end, at least by the premiere of Better Call Saul? ;) Poor Jesse... He seems to have found someone, or something. Is he preparing for good ol' Walt? Has he given up, or given in, to his perceptions of himself? How alone can a person be? And Marie's digging for her life. The pages are on Fanfiction.net /tv / Breaking-Bad. Same story title, same author. I am just too HTML challenged here. Thank you so much for your understanding, and for reading! Will update here when I get better at HTML! Er, Never?


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